Digital video camera for the field

One of my colleagues asked for a recommendation for a digital video camera for the field. I recommended against getting a Mini-DV or HV camcorder and instead going all digital with a flash (SDHC) based camcorder:

These days, instead of using tape, I recommend going all digital. That way, you can simply dump the video files to your PC and don't have to bother digitizing them. You will need a large hard drive, but a 500 gigabyte pocket hard drive is cheap and fits in your laptop bag easily.

I recommend these models:

Canon Vixia HF-10 or HF-100 (this is the one I use)

Sanyo Xacti (small, handheld, the microphone isn't as good on this, but size is excellent)

Be sure to get a large SD card -- at least 4 gigabytes. Eight or 16 gigabytes is preferable.

Karen

Do you think this was good advice? Please post any suggestions or comments (or questions)!

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7 Comments

It boils down to DV/HDV vs. AVCHD nowadays (with some crackpot cameras like the drool-worthy Toshiba Camileo using MJPEG AVI).

People need to understand the trade-off with AVCHD - lower file sizes, can be burned to a DVD as-is and read by a Blu-Ray player, but harder to edit and suffers from generation loss. At the very least prospective buyers need to know if their software supports AVCHD.

While I tend to agree with the idea of an easily copyable format that is very efficient in terms of storage, AVCHD seems to require a pretty heavy-duty processor to handle any kind of substantial editing/rendering. I tried out a Canon HF10 several months back and really liked the camcorder's performance, but couldn't handle waiting 20 minutes for a 30 second clip to render. As an ethnomusicologist who often records an entire concert's worth of material in a sitting, I simply can't imagine waiting hours for a one-hour performance, and away at a field site no less. Perhaps my computer is a bit outdated [a MacBook Pro (first generation) Intel Core Duo with 2GB ram] and therefore underpowered for the task. In the end I found an HDV-capable miniDV much more usable for hi-definition documentation. Not to mention the fact that in the digital file realm, one must have at least three simultaneous copies in order to be "backed-up" sufficiently. In a sense, the original tape allows me to have that should my other two digital copies become lost or unusable somehow.

Hmm... I find the processing time for AVCHD to be around 1:1 with my MacBookPro (latest model) and to be 10:1 with my Mac Pro desktop. What I don't like is that importing AVCHD usually results in an intermediary format that is much larger.

I have been getting used to a Canon HF 200 for location shooting. I still have a now 9 year old Canon GL1 mini dv camera with a good documentary kit.
Hidden away in my basement is my Sony Broadcast Betacam 400a - now almost 20 years old. And about 50 times heavier than my HF200!

I like the imagery from the HF200. I have bought additional batteries and their Mini S shoe shot-gun mic - which is pretty good. It is selling for about $459US now - a good price for a very tote-able basic camera.

The camera may seem almost too light to us older news shooters and takes getting used to.

By the way - Canon is only making a waterproof underwater housing for the HF200 at present...

You also have to remember to buy faster processing SDHC cards for video.

A friend at a TV station in Indianapolis has the same rig as a back-up or "touristy looking" not broadcast video cam for certain assignments.

My only complaint on the HF series is the 5 or 6 capture speeds. Shot stuff at Xmas for a friend to edit on a Mac in FCP at a higher format speed and he can't get the` card to work in his edit system for AVCHD. So for now - I recommend shooters with an HF series camera to shoot at SP speed.

Do buy an extra battery for you camera - you may need that as an option.
I hate charging batteries in-camera (part of the HF series) -- in case the camera is knocked off a table or whatever. I have a multi-battery charger for Canon batteries and would rather charge in that than in the camera.

Do monitor audio with an ear plug or phones - besides seeing the meter display "kick" in the viewfinder.

I know this is a bit of a bump, but I though I would weigh in on AVCHD almost a year later. Using Panasonics HMC150, I've found the quality of their "professional" AVCHD codec at its highest recording rate quite good--certainly as good or better than HDV. With the price of SDHC becoming rather reasonable, I decided to make a leap to a solid state camcorder. Having also recently upgraded my computer to the newest 15-inch Macbook Pro (i7 processor), I'm finding editing AVCHD footage much easier and with very few hiccups. As I am about to begin dissertation fieldwork, I am happily trading the much reduced hard disk storage requirement and native editing (via Adobe Premiere Pro CS5) for the security of having a tape backup.